The walk to find Cain was anything but pleasant for Dorian.
The campus was just another reminder of how atrocious the campus planning and design had been. As he first left his room, Dorian was greeted by lavish buildings, made with Ichor-Bent trees. These buildings were essentially still alive, just that people had forcibly changed the natural growth path of the trees, making it so that multiple trees would grow horizontally, connecting with nearby trees to create a building.
It was a gross overspending of money. Sure, it was technically “better in the long run”, as the T-Buildings would naturally maintain themselves and they had the potential to become T-Skyscrapers. But they also cost 10 times the price of normal buildings and required yearly trimming and guiding. A minimum wage worker would have to work and save every last bar he earned for 400 years to buy a single T-Building.
Even with enhanced lifespans thanks to a slower heartbeat, it still wasn’t feasible for a large majority of the population. Most had never had the privilege of entering into a T-Building in their entire lives, just cause of how rare and well-maintained these buildings tended to be. Only the Upper-Middle class and higher had the opportunity to enter said buildings.
Which is why Dorian was disgusted. Within his first 5 minutes of following Cain’s tracks, Dorian had yet to see a single building that wasn’t a T-Building. Despite how many times he had seen this view, it still made him feel a bit sick.
I could probably retire both my parents with just one of these buildings. Not only that, I could probably afford my tuition and living expenses all on my own, and then live off the money for the rest of my life as long as I lived decently frugally and invested it...
By the time Dorian had finished thinking about the baffling amount of wealth displayed in the inner campus, he had already reached the outer campus. And to say that it contrasted with the inner campus would be the understatement of a century.
It was hard to consider the outer campus as a part of the same school as the inner campus. While the inner campus had nicely paved roads, well-maintained common areas, and expensive buildings, it was difficult to list what desirable things or spaces the outer campus had.
There were half-completed T-Buildings, with gaps where the trees were supposed to merge. There were normal wooden buildings, with rotting wood all over the palace, clearly having gone years without an Ichor injection for maintenance.
The roads were nonexistent. The outer campus could realistically be described as a snowy forest with a handful of half-completed T-Buildings and a few more rotting normal buildings. As for common areas? Perhaps the students could gather in a rotting building, bonding over the shared fear that it would collapse.
What on Adlucnatio is Cain doing here, Dorian mused, there aren’t any buildings suitable for heart research, and the training facilities are non-existent here.
The only reason that Dorian could think of was a desire for secrecy. After all, there were no students who would be going to the outer campus. Here, although he would be dealing with the harsh cold, Cain would be free from the prying eyes and distractions of other students.
Dorian continued to follow Cain’s tracks, aided by the lack of paved roads. He could still clearly see Cain’s tracks in the snow, where he had left puddles of water from the heat he emitted.
Finally, Dorian saw that the footsteps entered a decrepit building, solid enough to not collapse from the wind, but certainly unable to keep anyone inside warm due to the numerous broken windows in the building.
Although Dorian couldn’t see inside the building due to how far he was, it was quite obvious where Cain was training.
As silently as he could, Dorian began focusing his Ichor on his eyes. His vision became marginally sharper, allowing him to see just a bit further, but more importantly, change where the heat was now produced. The quiet sizzling and melting of snow underneath his shoes were now gone, replaced by muffled footsteps that barely registered to Dorian.
As he snuck closer and closer to the abandoned building, his view of Cain became clearer and clearer. He could now see what parts of Cain were glowing red. It was something that Dorian had never seen a student do.
It wasn’t Dorian’s brain or muscles that were glowing a faint red. All of his veins were glowing, along with something else in the middle of his chest, slightly to the left. At first sight of this, Dorian couldn’t quite believe that he was seeing.
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He had never taken Cain as someone who was particularly talented when it came to Ichor control and manipulation. Sure, he was a genius researcher. That, Dorian was more than willing to admit. He was among the most dedicated researchers Dorian had ever seen. Having minor contributions to world-renowned papers was nothing to scoff at.
Forget being at Rank 1, he’s well into being Rank 2, possibly even Rank 3. I’m not sure if I could even do that...
To Dorian’s best guess, Cain was artificially lowering his own heart rate while attempting to increase the Ichor concentration in his blood. How Cain was able to achieve such an effect, Dorian wasn’t sure. But the implications were immense. Increased lifespan, higher ceiling for enhancements, and all kinds of other benefits that Dorian couldn’t begin to imagine.
I thought I’d be the only one with this kind of idea, Dorian thought to himself, I guess there truly are countless geniuses in this world. One was right under my nose and I never even noticed.
Dorian continued to observe Cain’s Ichor manipulation. The way that Cain’s blood would flow in and out of his heart, somehow increased its Ichor concentration as it flowed out of his heart. Dorian stood quietly, studying the intricacies.
***
It had been 14 hours since Dorian had first found Cain, and neither of them had moved more than an inch from their positions. Dorian was now sitting down, copying the meditative position that Cain was in. Attempting to copy the way that Cain was manipulating both his blood and heart.
Dorian had made numerous observations, helping him come up with a hypothesis on what Cain was doing. The irregular blood flow, different kinds of blood with different levels of Ichor concentration, and other factors all matched Dorian’s hypothesis on how to enhance his own heart and Ichor concentration.
A lot of this matches up with what I expected. I think I get the basic idea of Cain’s manipulation now. It’s to have 2 types of blood, one that’s doubly enhanced and the other that’s not enhanced at all. I just need to slow down my heart and change the speed at which blood enters and leaves my heart.
In his meditative position, Dorian tested his theory. He planned on first mentally dividing his blood into even portions so that he would be able to consistently enhance his blood. Dorian would then force a portion of his blood to stay in his heart for double the standard period of time, making it so that Ichor would conglomerate into a semi-solid substance. Then he’d quickly force this blood to exit, along with another additional portion that wasn’t enhanced.
In theory, this should result in his body having 2 different types of blood. One with no Ichor enhancement, and the other with a semi-solid form of Ichor that was double as effective as his normal Ichor-enhanced blood.
However, this was significantly easier in theory than in reality. To begin with, Dorian wasn’t sure what the proper portion was, and how to decide. So he went with what worked for him in the past. He just guesstimated it.
There wasn’t any logic to it. It was something between instinct and a gut feeling that led Dorian to choose some arbitrary portion to test out his theory. And once he put it to the test, Dorian failed spectacularly.
At first, Dorian felt a nagging feeling that told him something wasn’t right, and within a couple of seconds, a tightness in his chest confirmed his worries. So he stopped attempting to copy Cain and instead tried to observe what the problem was. And he quickly found out. The semi-solid form of Ichor was a bit too solid. In fact, it appeared to be clogging up his blood flow, which was never a good sign for someone with a high concentration of Ichor.
Oh fu-
An explosion quickly followed one that blasted the tree Dorian was hiding behind into smithereens. He didn’t even have enough time to finish his thought before a fist-sized hole was blown right in the middle of his chest.
***
A small explosion quickly took Cain’s attention off meditating and onto his surroundings.
There shouldn’t be anyone else on the outer campus right now. What could have possibly ca-
Dorian saw a mediocre looking black haired boy, who appeared to almost be in two pieces. It was quite obvious to Cain who and what had caused the explosion he had just heard. He quickly ran over to Dorian, hoping to potentially save him.
Then Cain stopped. And he started weighing the pros and cons of saving Dorian.
I know he’ll become a leading figure for the Eastern Empire, but the question is if someone else had a hand in helping him. The benefits of eating the heart of a generational genius can’t be understated. But stealing talent and potential isn’t worth a thing unless I’m still alive.
Cain quietly stood in front of Dorian’s body, trying to calculate the probability of whether an Immortal was backing Dorian or not.
His rise to power was just so... sudden. It happened at the perfect time, he provided the perfect help to the Eastern Empire. It just doesn’t line up with what I’ve seen from him so far. If he can’t even keep a scholarship with his current talent, how did he ever become The Gifted I once knew him as?
There were just too many unknowns for Cain to make a proper decision, so he went with the safe route. He placed his hand on Dorian’s dying body and began to channel his Ichor to help assist in saving Dorian’s life. It certainly wasn’t the first time that Cain had to repair a heart before.
He had long since memorized the anatomy of a heart and had many unfortunate circumstances that called for him to repair one. So when faced with the task of healing Dorian, it was like an average Tuesday. But despite how familiar Cain was with healing hearts, it was still a tedious process.
Cain relied on simply enhancing normal healing, albeit to an extreme. So whatever would normally take 100 minutes to heal, Cain would enhance the healing so it would be done within a single minute. The degree to which Cain could improve the natural healing rate would depend on what rank the person was. The higher they were, the lower the improvement would be.
This was anything but an easy task, as it was far beyond his capacities as a Lower Rank 3 Ichor Master. But when factoring in Dorian’s own Ichor, it became significantly more manageable. Although it had yet to be discovered, Ichor was just like any other inanimate object. It could be controlled and manipulated.
While it was near impossible to take control over another person’s Ichor, it was completely different if said person was unconscious and on the brink of death. It was like seeing millions of bars lying around. Free money for anyone who would take it. And Cain certainly wasn’t going to say no.
Cain smiled to himself and thought, I guess it is pretty funny seeing the creator of Ichor Enhancement half-dead because he tried to mimic me. Even more so when I’m using his discoveries to save him.
Either way, Cain was sure that Dorian wouldn’t be complaining about having his life saved. After all, this future hero’s life was currently in his hands.